


the spark before the dark (come a little closer)

by timeladyleo



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-30
Updated: 2020-10-30
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:46:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27281413
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/timeladyleo/pseuds/timeladyleo
Summary: It's the story of Bill's life, at this point. She sees a pretty girl. She talks to the pretty girl. She gets as far as a date, even! Then her day gets ruined by the Doctor.For the missed connections exchange 2020!
Relationships: Bill Potts/Susan Foreman
Comments: 2
Kudos: 19
Collections: Missed Connections Exchange





	the spark before the dark (come a little closer)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [vox_nihilio](https://archiveofourown.org/users/vox_nihilio/gifts).



> The prompt was 'Bill and Susan go on a date' and I couldn't resist it - I had a lot of fun writing this! Please don't think too hard about the timelines, though, because I definitely didn't (!) Title comes from Tegan and Sarah's _Closer_.

The first time Bill sees her, she is sure she recognises her face.

It’s the student bar, evening. Busy. It always is. Bill loves her friends, but sometimes they go off on such tangents that she can’t help her mind and eyes wandering. She finds her eyes wander a lot. There are so many pretty girls here, what else is she meant to do?

Then she sees this one girl, short, in stripes, and with an aura that almost feels like a magnetic draw to Bill. This girl is Weird with the capital W, and Bill needs to say something to her. 

She excuses herself from her friends and pretends she doesn’t hear Luke’s comment about her trying to chat up yet another poor girl. Perhaps she doesn’t have the greatest track record on that front, but it’s not going to stop her trying. There’s something else this time, as well. A familiarity that she’s determined to get to the bottom of. 

She makes her way through the crowd, trying to keep the girl in her sight, but she’s not quite tall enough to see over all the other heads in the room. A tall guy walks in front of her, and she’s afraid that the girl will be gone. She glances around, desperate, and spots her again.

Even though she’s getting closer, it doesn’t feel like it. Why are there so many people here tonight? She just wants to know why that girl is giving her a very real sense of familiarity. 

All of a sudden, just as Bill is rehearsing what to say to her, the girl seems to hear something. Turns and darts away. _Wait!_ Bill wants to call after her. _Who are you?_

Bill pushes through the crowd, watches the girl slip out of the door as if there are no people in her way at all. As if she can’t see them. 

It’s cold on the street outside, a dark November where even the sunlight hours have a deep chill to them. The sun’s long set now, though. It’s cloudy, but there’s the hazy glow of the full moon trying to break though, trying to light up the sky. Bill pulls her jacket tighter around herself, cursing the debate she’d had with herself earlier over which coat to put on. She’d made the wrong choice. 

But some fortune must still be on her side, because there’s the girl, disappearing around a corner into some gloomy alley. 

“Hey!” she calls out, but the girl continues like she didn’t hear. Bill finds her legs moving, running without asking. She’s glad that she’s been travelling, because she’s been doing a lot of running, and she’s fitter than ever. It would be so awkward to be stood in the street alone, breathless for running a hundred metres. 

The alley is empty. She can hear something, though. Voices. It sounds like an old man. Bill runs to the end of the alley to look down one of the other back streets, but then she stops dead because she could swear that she hears the TARDIS. What’s he up to, and why hasn’t he asked her?

She continues down the alley, half-expecting to find a grumpy old Scottish man waiting for her. But then the TARDIS noise is gone, and the girl is gone, and when she looks down the street, the Doctor isn’t there at all. 

-

Her friends had laughed at her when she’d gone back to them. It wasn’t the first time she’d had her head turned and done something daft in pursuit. But she’d been thinking about the girl for the rest of the night. 

Where had she seen her before?

She had very nearly been able to put the whole encounter out of her mind – a whole weekend getting chased by blobs with legs was enough to distract anyone from anything. 

But then her alarm goes off, Monday morning, and it’s another routine day in the canteen. Apron. Hairnet. Chips. Students who barely mumble a thank you because they only got out of bed twenty minutes ago, even though it’s half past one in the afternoon. Usually, Bill finds herself envious of the extra hours they got in bed. 

Today, her mind is drifting back to her mystery girl, desperately trying to place her in her memories. The students trundle past and she’s feeling generous in her distraction. She gives them extra chips. 

A girl whose name she’s pretty sure is Ellie comes up to the counter. She has a pretty smile, and she always says thank you. Bill beams at her and piles chips on her plate. One day she might learn how not to fall for every pretty girl she sees. Maybe. 

“You alright, love?” Betty, head of kitchen asks, bringing Bill back down from her fantasyland. “You’re looking distracted today.”

Bill takes a deep breath in and smiles. “I’m fine, promise. My mind’s elsewhere, that’s all.” 

“It’d better come back from holiday soon because we’ll be bang out of chips otherwise.”

“Sorry, Betty,” Bill grins sheepishly. 

“You need some hobbies, love. Something else to think about.” Betty smiles and takes the empty chip pan away. If only she knew what Bill’s real hobby was! Maybe then she’d understand why she was always so distracted. 

But Betty is right – she has been giving out far too many chips today. She has to stop losing herself to her imagination like this. 

A boy with shaggy bed hair blinks at her as she asks him what he wants. How hard of a question can it be? There aren’t exactly a lot of things to choose from, and the answer realistically is going to be chips. It usually is. 

Then she sees her, over his shoulder, walking into the lunch hall, head down as if she’s trying to make herself unnoticeable. Bill can’t help her grin, and the boy gives her a quizzical look. She piles some chips on his plate. 

Bill doesn’t exactly believe in fate and luck and stuff, but this feels too good to be true. 

The girl stands in line, looking about the room as though the concept of a lunch hall is completely alien to her. She peers at the group of girls in front of her and makes an expression that Bill can’t name. It might be fascination. Horror is likely, too. Most students are kind of gross, but it is interesting to Bill that they seem so unknown to her. Maybe she’s a master’s student. She doesn’t look like a fresher. She doesn’t have the right wide-eyed terror and awe about her. 

_Just act normal_ , Bill tells herself as the girl approaches the counter. “I’ll have chips, please,” she says. 

“I saw you the other night,” blurts Bill. 

“I know. I’m sorry I couldn’t stay.” Bill feels her mouth drop open. In an attempt to regain her dignity, she piles some chips on the girl’s plate. This is it, the moment she’s been imagining. Well, almost. She has to be bold now, because she has a feeling that she’ll never see this girl again if she isn’t. 

“Make it up to me?” Bill blurts. The girl looks surprised now, just as if she hadn’t imagined getting this far either. 

“You know the little café on the corner of the high street?” Bill nods. “Meet me there, tomorrow, at around two?”

“What’s your name?” Bill asks. Even if she had had plans for tomorrow, which she doesn’t, she’d have made time. 

“Susan.” The girl smiles and opens her mouth as if to say something else, but clearly thinks better for it. She waves and vanishes off into the crowd. 

Bill smiles to herself, serving a big portion to the next person in the queue as if to say sorry for holding them up. But she’s not sorry at all. For once, luck seems to be in her favour. 

It’s still bothering her, though, the girl’s face. Susan. Everything about her feels like they’ve met before. 

-

Even though she’s fifteen minutes early, Susan is still sat waiting for her in the café. She’s reading a book. Bill wanders over, trying not to look too eager, and sits in the chair opposite. Susan beams at her. Already, Susan’s got the drinks – an iced coffee looking thing for herself, and for Bill, hot chocolate, with what looks like extra cream and not too many tiny marshmallows. Just the way she likes it. 

“How did you know my order?” 

Susan shrugs. “It felt right to me. Is it?”

“Yeah.” Bill leans forward. Susan is weird, but Bill likes weird. Bill thinks she likes Susan a lot, actually. “What you reading?”

“Advanced quantum theory, and it is funny. Imagine doing string theory but forgetting the sixth dimensional components!” She chuckles to herself. Bill doesn’t see the joke but smiles anyway. 

“Physics, then, yeah?”

“Yeah?”

“I mean, you study it then?”

“Oh… no, not really. I just – I know quite a lot about it from my grandfather. He’s quite the scientist, at least, he can be.”

“I bet it’s cool to have a science granddad. It’s nice that he teaches you stuff.” Bill realises that she’s turning bitter, and she’s really not in the mood to talk about her family. It’s complicated. Susan looks at her with wide, gentle eyes as if she’s seeing more than just Bill sat before her. It should be creepy, or unsettling at least, but it just makes Bill want to trust her. 

Still, she diverts the conversation again. “Not a student, so… what’re you doing here?”

Susan’s whole body tenses, her face switching from warm understanding to panic in a blink. Her eyes dart about as though she’s looking for an excuse, and Bill’s about to tell her it’s okay, that she doesn’t have to answer, but before Bill can say anything, Susan says, measuredly, “We’re stuck here, my Grandfather and I. He got lost while we were on holiday here, and our… vehicle broke down. He is trying to fix it, and I keep telling him that I could help, but he’s stubborn.”

“Yeah, I know a guy like that. He’s my tutor, actually. Never met anyone so unable to accept help, even when he really, really needs it.”

“That sounds just like Grandfather!” Susan giggles as though they’re conspiring, and Bill feels her face split open into a smile. _Please_ , she thinks, _don’t let anything ruin this. For a change, let me just have this_. She remembers the Pope in her bedroom and tries desperately to forget it again. 

“Tell me about him,” Bill says. “He sounds cool.” 

“He is. We left home a few… years ago, and – I had to move schools, and Grandfather was having some, uh, difficulties.” Susan frowns as if it’s painful to remember. Bill, without thinking, reaches across the table to take her hand.

“We travel a lot,” Susan continues, her face changing again to an expression Bill can’t read. “We’ve been to all sorts of places, like you wouldn’t believe! All over the world, and we’ve met tribespeople and queens, and once we went to-”

She catches herself, killing the sentence halfway as though she’s going to give something away. Bill’s on the edge of her seat. It wouldn’t even matter to her if Susan were lying, if she were weaving a fancy tale to impress her. She is impressed, and she wants to listen to Susan talk and talk and talk. 

“I’m sorry,” says Susan, her eyes hardening. Withdrawing. “I don’t mean to just talk about myself. I’m sure that you’ve been to many exciting places too.”

Bill makes a conscious effort to close her mouth, shrugging in what she hopes is nonchalance. Hopefully, her disappointment isn’t too obvious. “I’ve been to a couple of places, here and there.” That’s a lie. “Nothing too exotic.” That’s a lie too, but she can hardly tell Susan about colony worlds or skating on the Thames. She’s already made herself look like a nutter and she’ll be kicking herself for weeks if she scares Susan off. 

“But you can tell me a story?” Bill grins, and hopes she doesn’t sound too cheeky. Their eyes meet. There’s something there, written all over Susan’s face, something that Bill doesn’t know how to read, some puzzle she can’t figure out. Some secret Susan’s keeping, hiding. 

She seems to weigh up her options, figuring out how much to let slip. Bill takes a sip of her hot chocolate, can’t decide if it’s best to look away and let Susan think, or try and catch her eye again, to smile and show her there was no pressure. She’s about to blurt something, just to say anything at all, but then Susan comes back from her thoughts and smiles. It’s a lovely smile, wide and unashamed. 

“I suppose I could tell you about one or two of our adventures. You won’t think I’m mad, will you? If they sound untrue, because I promise you they are.”

“Promise,” says Bill, softly. She doesn’t break promises, and she highly doubts that Susan’s mad. Weird, yeah. But she likes that.

“Well, one time, we happened across this tribe who were trying to light a fire…” 

-

It strikes Bill as a strange place to have parked the Tardis. Usually, she sits happily in the corner of the Doctor’s office, almost like a cat, curled up on the rug. So, it feels like an odd choice to have landed out here, in this alley, in the evening rain. Still, by now Bill knows better than to question what the Doctor’s thinking, because those two words don’t go together very often. 

Hindsight will say that she should have noticed that the box seemed smaller, somehow. A different shade of blue. Small windows. But thinking and Bill aren’t exactly best friends either. 

Her key if still in the lock, but the Tardis relents and lets her in. Bill says thank you in her head, pushing the thought out just in case the Tardis could hear her. The way the Doctor acted, she was pretty sure that the Tardis was alive, somehow, and she didn’t want to be rude.

And then she was in a room she didn’t recognise, all white and round things. It was still the Tardis, it had to be. The room thrummed with the same kind of energy. 

“Doctor?” she called. “Have you redecorated?” Nothing. This is starting to freak her out a bit, actually. “Doctor? Nardole? Is anyone there?”

She approaches the centre console, and finds she’s surprised that it’s clean. Almost new looking. Something feels wrong about it, like she’s just stepped into a showroom in B&Q rather than somewhere lived in. 

A door opens and an old man glares at her suspiciously. “Hello? Young lady, how did you get in here?”

“Uh, I’m looking for the Doctor?” Bill shrugs, trying her hardest to smile non-threateningly even though her pulse is racing. This doesn’t seem to make the man any happier. 

“Have we met before?”

“I don’t think so? Sorry. I was just – I just expected to find my friend in here, that’s all.”

The old man mutters something, wanders closer to her. Bill tries to keep her composure. This is a situation she can handle. She and the Doctor have been through much worse, and compared to a dalek or space zombies, one old bloke who may or may not be a Time Lord is definitely something she can cope with. 

He looks at her again, an intensity in his eyes that feels familiar. Bill takes a breath, swinging her hands by her sides. “Look, I can just go if he’s not here, it’s okay. I’ll see him later anyway.”

“I think you’ll find you are looking at him now. Who are you?”

Bill’s mouth drops open, and then her heart sinks as she hears a girl shout “Grandfather!” from down the corridor. Susan bursts in, panicked, and everything clicks into place in Bill’s head. 

It's the story of her life, at this point. She sees a pretty girl. She talks to the pretty girl. She gets as far as a date, even! Then her day gets ruined by the Doctor.

Susan is looking around wildly, clearly trying to think of some sort of explanation that will satisfy both Bill and her Grandfather. Her _Grandfather_! The Doctor just nods sagely, the worry under his prickly exterior dissipating. He might have a different face, here, but that alone convinces Bill it’s the same person. It’s just so him. 

“You’re Susan’s friend. Yes, she mentioned that she had met a new human. I suppose you’re going out now, then, Susan? I wish you had said something.”

“Sorry, Grandfather,” she says, grabbing her coat off the hatstand. “I’ll see you later.” She wraps an arm around Bill’s shoulders and herds her back out onto the street. It’s still raining. 

“What are you doing?” Susan hisses. “How did you know to come here? I’m sorry that you had to find out like this, I just thought for once someone might not get nosy and try to figure out my life, but-”

“I know about the Tardis,” says Bill, slowly. She has a feeling this might be harder for Susan than it is for her. She’s just glad the Doctor’s mentioned regeneration to her. 

“You– what?”

Bill holds up her key. “The Doctor’s my tutor…” 

They stare at each other for a long moment. Rain is dripping down the back of Bill’s neck, and she shivers. “Let’s go inside?” she says, holding out her hand. She’s pleasantly surprised when Susan takes it. 

They end up in the café on the corner. It’s quiet because it’s late, but it’s warm and dry at least. Bill’s friendly with the owner, she’s been on many a failed date here. He winks at her as he gives her a discount on the drinks. 

Bill finds she doesn’t know what to say. This is a situation that has a high potential to be very, very awkward. She traces the handle of the mug, trying to think of something. 

“Has he regenerated? I mean, has he got a new body?” 

Susan opens her mouth, about to panickily explain the concept of Time Lords, so Bill just nods to cut her off. She doesn’t think she can cope with thinking about the Doctor regenerating right now. 

“Yeah, he looks different. Still old and grumpy, though.” This makes Susan laugh, though her eyes are watering. Bill tentatively stretches out her hand, palm up, hoping Susan understands it’s a gesture of comfort. Susan takes it gently. 

“I wonder how many times…” she trails off, then changes subject altogether. “He’s your tutor? And here I was trying to hide time travel from you! You must think I’m stupid.”

Bill squeezes her hand, shakes her head. “Not for a second. I mean, I was hiding it from you, too! Who would believe in all that stuff? It’s so sci-fi!”

“It is exciting though, isn’t it?”

“I’ve never been having more fun in my whole life! So when you met that tribe, with the fire – were they actually-”

“Prehistoric! It was about, oh, 100,000 BC in human years…”

-

It’s really quite late by the time they leave. The owner brings them another drink and gently tells them he’d like to go home after they finish. Bill looks at her watch and swears, apologises. It really is late, and she feels bad for keeping him. 

But it’s so nice, sat here in the warm, talking to someone who understands. Who’s listening, who’s telling stories too. Who has such a nice smile. Somehow knowing that she’s a Time Lord, that she’s going to leave is making it feel so much harder. At least when people walk away from her, she knows there’s a chance she might bump into them again. 

They walk back out onto the street, and it’s cold. A small part of Bill had hoped that the rain would have let up so they might be able to see some stars. It hasn’t. 

Susan’s hands are very cold in Bill’s but she doesn’t seem to be noticing the weather at all. Probably a Time Lord thing. Is it weird to ask the Doctor about it later? How long has it been since he last saw Susan? How old even is he?

The Tardis stands where they left her, almost glowing under a streetlight. Bill knows that the second Susan goes back through that door, that’s going to be it. It’s going to be over. 

“Am I ever gonna see you again?” Bill asks, hating the desperate overtones in her voice. 

Susan shrugs, not letting go of Bill’s hand. “Grandfather wants to leave soon. He doesn’t like being tied down to one place for too long. I suppose you know that too. I doubt he’s changed that much.”

“No, he really hasn’t.” Bill smiles at her. “Just… Try and come back? One day?” 

A long moment passes between them. Bill knows that this is the end, but it doesn’t stop her hoping. Won’t stop her dreaming. 

“I’ll see you again. I can feel it.” Susan kisses her on the cheek. Then she lets go of Bill’s hand, reluctant, and walks away. 

Bill runs before she can see the Tardis go. 

-

The Doctor’s giving her a look, but she doesn’t care. She wants to know more, and she feels like it’d do him some good to open up. He has her photo on his desk, after all. 

“Go on, tell me about her. I bet she’s brilliant.”

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on tumblr at [sircarolyn](http://sircarolyn.tumblr.com/)!


End file.
